


take only what you need from it

by albion



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Sexual Tension, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albion/pseuds/albion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were brothers. </p><p>Modern!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take only what you need from it

He doesn’t know when it began; when they started sharing a bedroom despite them both being over the age of five, it not being appropriate.

 

But then, Kíli was never one for following convention.

 

“Archery?” Uncle Thorin had sniffed; peering over his newspaper. The headline screamed about a double theft at a local supermarket, SEVERAL CARTONS OF JUICE STOLEN. Fíli hadn’t cared at the time, “like those Greenleafs?”

 

“Wouldn’t it be Greenleaves?” asked Dís, coming into the living room with a tray set with teapot and cups. Thorin took a cup gratefully, sniffed at the newspaper, and folded it shut again. Fíli sat up from his chair in the corner.

 

“Their name is Greenleaf. That means it’s Greenleafs. I don’t think conventional grammar works with that sort of thing,” he replied cheerfully.

 

“Well then,” said his mother, setting down a cup and saucer for herself and passing Thorin the sugar, to which he made a face and passed it to Fíli.

 

“I really, _really_ want to learn archery,” said Kíli, trying his hardest to look like he deserved having archery lessons paid for him and hadn’t just been in trouble yesterday for jumping the fence over at Ori’s and inadvertently breaking into Old Man Balin’s back garden, “please?”

 

Thorin drank deeply from his teacup and set it down rather abruptly onto the saucer, sending earl grey sloshing over the rim and into the saucer. Dís tutted quickly and slapped his wrist.

 

“No nephew of mine is going to learn archery like some… some… high class _Greenleaf_. Why don’t you take up other things like your brother?”

 

Kíli frowned angrily and refused to speak. When Fíli crawled up to bed later, all thirteen year old gangly limbs and the awkwardness of puberty, Kíli had let out a little eight year old sob and had let his older brother envelope him in warm arms.

 

(Thorin gave in the next day after a sharp talk from his sister, and a week later Kíli was at the local sports centre with Legolas.)

 

.

When Fíli had turned 18 and started university, Kíli had blown up a big fuss. Fíli was leaving town and moving to the city; he was going to live in residence.

 

“You’ll be gone and partying and having fun in a dorm and I’m going to be stuck here in my last year of high school with Mother and Father and Uncle Thorin breathing down my back every five minutes,” he grumbled.

 

Fíli looked up from where he had been trying unsuccessfully to squash down and hide his pipe under a pair of jeans.

 

“I’m only going to be 2 hours away. You can come visit me when you have time. And I’ll be coming back at holidays anyway. Besides, university isn’t all partying. I’m studying engineering. It’s gonna be all physics and math and equations.” He made a face.

 

Kíli broke into a grin, “they say the engineering students are the ones who are always drunk.”

 

“Yeah, why don’t you take it then? God knows I’ve seen you stealing Uncle Thorin’s ale on Friday nights when you think no one’s looking.”

 

Kíli laughed, throwing back his head. Fíli had always thought Kíli’s laugh was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

 

(When Kíli started university a year later, no one had thought anything about them sharing a dorm room. They were brothers.)

 

.

 

It’s 3am when Kíli stumbles into the room, startling Fíli at his desk, where he’d spent five consecutive hours poring over notes and howling in silent frustration at his professor’s atrocious handwriting.

 

“Kíli. What the fuck have you been doing.”

 

“Out… with Bofur…” he managed, collapsing onto Fíli’s bed, “Nori challenged me to a drinking contest.”

 

“And you won?”

 

“Hell yes I won. After I caught him cheating and threw him out the bar window.”

 

“My God. Did you get kicked out?”

 

“We’ll find another bar to go to.”

 

Kíli is absentmindedly brushing his upper arm; his cheeks flushed red and his dark hair wild about his face. Fíli has a right mind to angrily send him to bed and call Mother or Uncle Thorin, but another part of him wants to gently cover him with blankets and hum little nonsense songs in his ear; the way they did as children.

 

And another small, small part of him wants to brush his own hand over that arm, to feel the dark hair and perhaps to go further, to brush underneath the clothes and feel him, strong and muscular and so much taller than Fíli.

 

Kíli starts snoring, and Fíli turns back to his notes with a sigh.

 

(They earn their degrees; Fíli in engineering and Kíli in biochemistry, and Thorin had stood next to Dis both times, small tears down his face as he whispers to her _i’m so proud. my nephews and heirs and i’m so proud._ )

 

.

 

They sit now, alone in their shared living room, in their shared apartment on the top floor of a building downtown. Kíli stares outside at the night sky, studying stars, a cup of coffee in one hand and a small wood carving he’d spent the day doing in the other.

 

Fíli sits on the sofa, fiddling with the braids in his moustache and twirling the phone cord.

 

“He’s dead.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Uncle Thorin is… dead.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You know what this means, don’t you,” Kíli turns around, sending a splash of coffee onto the carpet and Fíli doesn’t care that they won’t be able to get it out later, because all he’s seeing is how much in that instance Kíli resembles their uncle. He should have been the oldest.

 

“You’re his heir,” Kíli continues, “that means you’ll have to take over the company.”

 

“I don’t want to.”

 

“You don’t really have a choice, do you?”

 

“Oh goddammit! I wanted to choose my own life, not be told what to do by my uncle!” and Fíli is on his feet now, “It’s alright for you; you can do whatever the hell you want, because you’re the youngest! I have responsibility, and I don’t want it. I’ve never wanted it.”

 

He sits down again, heavily, and refuses to meet Kílis eyes. He hates responsibility, hates that his uncle, his proud uncle Thorin is gone and he doesn’t understand why, hates that suddenly he has a million responsibilities that he never wanted, and Kíli doesn’t have any.

 

Kíli sits down beside him, and Fíli moves away childishly.

 

“I’ll always be here for you if you need me,” comes Kíli’s voice from beside him, and Kíli is now aware of Kíli’s arm pressing against his, “he never meant for us to be alone. You’ll become president of the company and I’ll be right here, holding you up.”

 

“I know,” Fili replies, uncomfortably aware of Kíli’s warmth and his body and _oh god does he know, does kíli know oh god_

 

Fíli turns to say something, to push his brother away and Kíli meets his mouth with his own.

 

Fíli pulls away.

 

“This isn’t appropriate. I can’t, _we_ _can’t_... oh Durin....” Kili’s doing something with his hands on Fili’s chest and Fíli cannot think straight or get the words out of his mouth.

 

“Have I ever cared what people thought?” answers Kili, a shit eating grin on his face.

 

“No...?” Fíli manages to stutter.

 

“Good, so just shut up and forget what people say and forget responsibility. Tomorrow everything is going to change but tonight we’re going to enjoy what we have. Together. We’ll always be together.”

 

(Fíli grips Kíli’s arm and doesn’t let go.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's always the brothers.


End file.
